


there but for the grace of you go I

by catmanu



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Champions League, Drabble Collection, Hotel Sex, Liverpool F.C., M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, de facto breakups, handjobs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:20:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28796778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catmanu/pseuds/catmanu
Summary: A set of Movren drabbles, not in chronological order and updated whenever there's one to add.Update: Chapter 3 (which bumped the rating up, lol) is now posted!
Relationships: Dejan Lovren/Mohamed Salah
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	1. summer, 2020

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from "Kathy's Song" by Simon & Garfunkel, because I'm that bitch.

"Why’d you do it, Mo?” Dejan asks.He thinks he knows the answer, but he wants to hear it from those pretty lips.He needs to get used to those lips being nothing but a screen.

Mo fidgets, looks away, runs his hand through what’s left of his hair. “Just wanted a change, you know?”

“Right after I left you decide to change your hair? And they’re not related?”

“Well...”

“Tell me, Mo. Tell me the real reason why Mo Salah cut his famous hair.”

When Mo looks back at Dejan again, there are surely tears in his brown eyes.“To say the truth. My old hair, it makes me think too much of you.”

“Of me? _Your_ hair reminds you of _me._ That makes sense, Mo, of course.”

“Shut up, Dej.”

Dejan shuts up. He can’t resist that kind of order, not coming from Mo.

“Hold on.It’s weird wearing a shirt.”He drops his phone on the bed and pulls his shirt off, then stretches out on the bed again, getting comfortable on all the pillows.They have good pillows here in this Russian hotel.He blinks at his phone—Mo’s shirt is gone as well.

“Something about you is different now, Mo.I can’t think of what.Will you tell me?”

“It was weird to wear a shirt.”

“Showoff.My self-confidence…you’re bad for me, Mo.”What perfect men they both are, Dejan thinks, looking at the two of them on his phone.

“Okay, Dej.Stop complaining.”

“So nice, Mo.So supportive.Tell me about your hair.”

“I said.It made me think of you.”

Dejan sighs extra-dramatically to make Mo laugh.“Can you tell me what the fuck that means already?”

“I mean your hands.Your fingers, you know.The way you…” He makes a little pulling motion in the air.

“The way I pull?”

“Yes, the way you pull it, Dej.”

“You’re afraid you’re going to want some other guy to come along and pull your hair?I feel so much better about leaving now, amazing.”Dejan is surprised he even managed to joke about this—that’s how afraid of it happening he is.

He doesn’t think Mo would even _want_ to replace him, but he’s needy and sucks up praise like a sponge and so—it _could_ happen.It could even be Virg, or Robbo.One of those two.Maybe they’ve been waiting.

Mo looks at him like he’s crazy.“No.What?No.When I would look at my hair…”He pulls at the tiny curls at the top of his head.“I would think of you too much.So now maybe I can think about you less.”

“Oh,” Dejan says.He had prepared himself for weeks, for this to be hard, but it’s so much worse than he’d expected.“And did it work?”

“No.”Mo sighs and wraps one of his curls around his finger.He pulls, and a look flickers across his face that Dejan imagines only he could recognize. _He needs me.What do I do now?What am I doing here?_

“Not yet, no.”


	2. kyiv

_There is water dripping softly from a shower or sink in the other room. Some of the guys are never careful about that kind of thing._

_It feels haunted with no one in here and it smells like…lots of men. Guys after a game, you know? It’s familiar._

_But the only man you care about right now is in front of you, his eyes as red as his crumpled kit._

_What does someone like you do at a time like this?Oh, you could have killed Ramos.You would have if there wasn’t a game to try to win.And maybe you still will try.Winners never quit, quitters never win…but—_

_Sometimes you feel that God put you on Earth to defend people at any possible cost.Maybe you’re like a knight’s armor.Or like a tank.Something bulletproof.You take the pain, you take the insults, so they don’t have to.It only makes you stronger, and the stronger you are—_

_Your need to kill is suddenly fucking gone and all you want is to protect your sweet, sad boy._

_You won’t risk touching his shoulder so you sink to the cold floor instead, resting your head on his lap._

_He puts his hand on your head.“Dej…”_

_“I’ll kill him,” you blurt out.Okay, so your need to kill maybe is still around, just a little.But it’s alright, because Mo isn’t the sweet angel people think he is—_

_Mo laughs, not a full laugh like he usually does, but a strange little laugh like it’s stuck on something in his chest.“But you have to hire someone to do it, Dej.”_

_“Hire someone? Me?What do you think I have all of these muscles for?Did you forget how strong I am, Mo?Come onnnnnnn.”_

_“Yes, you have to hire someone.Because they’ll be watching for you.They probably have bodyguards waiting to protect him now, in their dressing room.And he’s scared, so they’re watching.”_

_“I see you were thinking about this a little,” you say to the warm thigh muscle your lips are pressed against.“Bad boy, huh?”_

_“No, of course not.I’m good, Dej, I am very good.”_

_His fingers brush the curve of your ear, but just for a moment. Even when you two are all alone, it isn’t easy.You think you’ve accepted this._

_“Hey, when’s medical coming back?”_

_“They said any minute.”_

_“Any minute.”_

_“Yeah, and then I guess I’ll find out how long they think I’ll be out.”_

_It’s one thing to fantasize about how you’ll make Luka’s friend pay for all this.It’s another to hear what it will all mean for Mo’s dreams.The words hit your stomach like a cannonball and stay there._

_“I try to be positive always, you know, but I don’t want this, Dej.”_

_“Well, of course you don’t.If you did I would think there was something wrong with you.You could go on one of those TV shows about weird people who want to cut off their own legs.Like, ‘Hello, my name is Mo Salah, I am the best forward in the world and I have always dreamed of being injured.’”_

_“Okay, shut up, Dej.I was being serious.I don’t want this.The World Cup is coming up, I’m…Do you think I did something to make this happen?”_

_This is a strange question.You and Mo, sure, you two can be serious, it’s not always like your Instagram stories, but this is some kind of deep shit that you don’t know how to handle.It’s not that you can’t be deep.You think about a lot of things people think footballers are too stupid to think about.But you also think Mo can go deeper even than that._

_You try to avoid it.“Like what kind of thing, you got lost trying to find the bathroom and pissed in his boots instead?”_

_“Dej.I was being serious, I said…Look at me.”_

_You tilt your chin up.His eyes are full of tears again, and you quickly reach up to brush away the sweet little curl hanging down the center of his forehead.If he cries like he did going off the pitch you think you’ll lose your fucking mind.You’ll just lose it._

_“I’m looking at you, Mo.Please don’t start to cry, that will be the end of Dejan Lovren, they’ll bury me next to the Joel Hotel pool.What the fuck do you mean?”_

_“Do you think I deserve this?Maybe I am selfish, or I wanted the wrong thing, the wrong things.”_

_“Listen to me.I know…Listen to_ me _, okay?Nothing you want is wrong.I promise._ Nothing _you want is wrong.”_

_You mean a lot of things when you say this.You hope he knows that._

_And you wrap your arms, your wings, tight around his waist.“Now shhhh,” you say.“If you keep talking we won’t hear medical coming.”_

_The water drips in the other room and he softly cries and you squeeze and squeeze his perfect little body.It’s like you are squeezing all his tears out.You wish you could.No more crying._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With apologies to my fifth grade English teacher...She told us never to write in the second person, but who even has time for abitrary writing advice amirite


	3. still asleep

Waking up in the middle of the night is nice when they have an away game.This is when Mo is _his,_ fearlessly his, the way Dejan wishes they could always be.When Mo sleeps in his bed all night and wakes up with a smile and a long, lazy stretch and then a shiver as Dejan runs his nails across the muscles in his back. When everything they must worry about might as well not exist.

Dejan wakes up with a face full of curls.Mo sleeps on his left side, facing away with the slightest bit of distance in between them.It’s more distance than Dejan ever wants, but what’s he going to do? Wake the guy up and tell him to move back over?Sure, okay, that’s actually kind of tempting, but Mo’s a real brat when you wake him up for no reason.Dejan’s not feeling up to dealing with that tonight.

He swings his long legs out of the bed, shuffles off to the bathroom, and races back to bed as fast as he can because he _misses_ Mo. 

He’s left the covers rolled down and there’s a bit of light coming in through the window and it’s like a spotlight on Mo, his star, the best foot in the Premier League—or, rather, a spotlight on the black boxer briefs Mo’s sleeping in.Modest little thing, he is.Dejan makes sure to sleep naked with Mo.It makes him feel powerful, to lie there with his cock hot and hard and ready against Mo’s plump cheeks.And shouldn’t he feel that way?Mo is the goal-scorer, but Dejan is the pure strength. The defender. The protector.

The streetlamp’s spotlight on Mo shows off the hard-on he’s got in his sleep, and Dejan’s own stirs and his mouth waters at the look of it.Amazing Mo, miraculous Mo, a royal presence on Anfield’s pitch, and yet his body behaves like any other man’s when he sleeps.It makes Dejan feel kind of stupid, being so amazed by that, but that’s what makes his thing with Mo as good as it is.Everything is a fucking thrill every time.

He’s getting hard fast and he’s as awake as if it were the middle of the fucking day.He climbs back into bed, rolling onto his side and curling around Mo, and palms his sweet little cock through his underwear.(Is it actually _little?_ Dejan doesn’t know, but his is bigger and he likes it that way.)Mo breathes out fast, a puff of air, almost like he’s mad.Dejan buries his face in the soft curls again.He runs a finger up Mo’s cock, finding the vein, feeling it hot even through the fabric.“Mo,” he breathes into the curls.“You are so beautiful.”He kisses the curls.“I am so lucky.”He kisses them again.“You are so lucky.”He kisses them _again_.“We are so lucky…”

He slips his hand underneath Mo’s boxer briefs and explores the treasure he finds.Mo’s body is his in this moment, all his, and he wants to enjoy every detail.He cups Mo’s balls—sweaty and warm, the skin tight and straining already—and then glides his palm up to grip Mo’s cock.Oh, he’s hard, he’s _so_ hard.And Mo wiggles against him and moans, softly, an _oh_ sound that makes it sound like he’s awake. 

He’s got to be awake.“Hey, stop pretending to be asleep,” Dejan says.“You're shit at it.Come on, Mo.”

Mo’s eyes stay shut and Dejan starts to jerk him off hard, rough.He kicks the blanket all the way off of Mo and watches his little toes curling.It’s a special treat.They usually fuck in a hurry—in cars, in the showers—and he doesn’t get to enjoy the small things like Mo’s toes curling, his feet kicking, the way he’s not afraid of how good he feels when they’re alone—

“I know you’re awake, Mo,” Dejan says, and Mo breathes out, harder, a little whine mixed in with all that breath.Dejan touches the little drop of precum at Mo’s tip.That didn’t take long.He runs his fingers through it and tastes and says “Mmmmm,” hot in Mo’s ear for the sweet thing’s benefit, and then keeps pumping Mo’s cock fast, firm.Mo pants, his chest sweaty, his eyes still closed.Dejan’s hand is getting cramped trapped inside the boxer briefs, but he doesn’t want to take them off.He’ll make Mo come in them—it’s somehow dirtier than aiming his cock toward the sheets or his perfect abs—and he’ll—

Dejan’s so hard it hurts and he wants to be a part of this.He pushes down the waistband of Mo’s underwear just at the back and slides his cock right in there against his ass. 

This isn’t the time to get out the lube and start that whole thing, no, it’s time to hump against Mo like he’s back at his first time with a guy years ago.He feels kind of like that now, like it all feels so good and right that he just has to go wild and get off.Mo pushes back against him; Dejan feels those two plump cheeks relax a little, making room for his cock to slide.Mo’s well-trained.All by Dejan. _By me, I did it, only me, Mo is mine only, just mine._ He rubs against Mo, hard, blindly, his fist starting to cramp as he brings Mo closer and closer. __ And closer, and—

He comes with a loud groan in Mo’s ear, Mo’s skin growing all sticky and warm and wet, and Mo pants, his hand drifting up to his curls.Even in the middle of coming all over Mo, Dejan knows what he wants.He grabs a chunk of soft hair and pulls like his whole world depends on it.Mo moans louder, almost like he’s yelling, and then he comes hot into Dejan’s fist, his fingers twisting in the sheets.Dejan searches his exhausted brain.Who’s next door to him, who shares the wall?Hendo, Hendo’s next door.If anyone can keep a secret, it’s their captain.It’s alright, it’ll be alright.

Dejan feels one last little squirt into his palm and Mo sighs, smiling a little.He opens his fist and wipes his hand clean on Mo’s underwear, his balls, his thighs.“Mmmm,” he says.And he moves his hand around.He runs his finger through the mess he’s made between Mo’s cheeks, and then pulls his underwear back up, making sure to let the waistband snap against Mo’s sweaty skin.He gently slaps where his hand’s just been.“Alright then, get up, Mo.I guess I’ll say _wake up, Mo,_ even though you are shit at acting.Come on.”

Dejan kind of resents how Mo always has to get up and clean himself off after they do anything.Even though he comes back right away and crawls right into Dejan’s arms for kisses, or talking a little shit about each other, or both at once.It’s just not how Dejan would want it.But he’s an adult about it, he’s a good person. “Mo. You have to wash yourself off, don’t you?”

Mo shakes his head and smiles the kind of smile he only does for Dejan, his eyes still closed tight.He reaches out for Dejan’s arm and pulls it across his chest, letting it drape across his six-pack. Only Mo would find a way to show off and cuddle at the same time. “How can I if I’m asleep, Dej?”


End file.
